Valtrus Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Prime Data Centers, LLC

I'll research this case thoroughly using multiple targeted searches.

Good start. Let me dig into the parties, the patent, and the MDL.

Let me verify the defendant, the specific filings, and patent details.

Case Overview: Valtrus Innovations Ltd. et al. v. Prime Data Centers, LLC, No. 2:26-cv-02413 (E.D. Cal.), transferred to E.D. Tex. (MDL No. 3190)

The parties. Plaintiffs are Valtrus Innovations Limited and Key Patent Innovations Limited ("KPI"), both Dublin-based patent monetization vehicles (Unified Patents classifies Valtrus as an NPE/PAE). Valtrus is a successor-in-interest to a large portfolio spun out of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its predecessors (Compaq, Verity, HP Development Company); Valtrus's Managing Director has testified that Valtrus acquired the portfolio in May 2021 (USPTO assignments at Reels 56157/0492 and 55269/0001) and that 50+ entities have licensed it without litigation. Structurally, Valtrus is the record titleholder as bare trustee under a Declaration of Trust, with KPI as beneficiary and KPI itself a subsidiary of New PP Licensing LLC. That trust is the campaign's central vulnerability: a court in the E.D. Tex. Valtrus/SAP dispute found "Valtrus does not have 'all substantial rights' in the Asserted Patents, and it therefore fails to meet 35 U.S.C. § 281's requirements" (citing Lone Star Silicon Innovations v. Nanya, 925 F.3d 1225 (Fed. Cir. 2019)), while holding Article III standing existed; N.D. Cal. proceedings in Valtrus v. Google, No. 5:25-cv-07063, recount the same Valtrus I/Valtrus II choreography and KPI's necessary joinder. That is why KPI — not Valtrus alone — is a co-plaintiff in the 2026 data center wave, including here. Defendant Prime Data Centers, LLC is a data center developer/operator; trade press reports the accused facility is Prime's ORD01 campus in Illinois. (I could not independently verify Prime's headquarters, ownership, or portfolio size from the sources retrieved.)

The accused technology and the patent. This suit belongs to a Valtrus campaign that targets data center operators rather than equipment suppliers. The theory is that an operator directly infringes method claims by operating building cooling/atmospheric-control systems — sensing conditions at many points and using control software to continuously match cooling output to heat load. Valtrus's claim charts point to third-party instrumentalities inside the facility (Vertiv/Liebert iCOM, Schneider Electric, Vigilent). Per the case metadata, the asserted patent is U.S. Patent No. 6,718,277 ("the '277 patent"), issued April 2004 and originally assigned to HP/HPE; claim 1 (as amended by a certificate of correction) recites supplying a conditioned fluid inside a building; sensing at least one atmospheric parameter at a plurality of locations; generating an "empirical atmospheric map" from the sensing results using software; comparing that map to a "template atmospheric map"; and identifying pattern differentials between the two. The '277 patent is one of a four-patent data-center family Valtrus has asserted ('277, '287, '179, '870) against NTT Data, DataBank, TierPoint, CyrusOne and Digital Realty, and its key terms were briefed in the E.D. Tex. Vertiv claim-construction fight. Critically, the patents are expired — Valtrus's own complaints elsewhere plead infringement only "before the expiration of the '277 Patent" — so Prime is a past-damages case, with no injunctive leverage. Caveat: one trade report states that two expired patents are asserted in the Prime matter; the metadata lists only the '277 patent, and I could not retrieve the E.D. Cal. or N.D. Ill. complaint to reconcile that.

Posture, venue, and why it matters. Two Prime filings appear in the record: N.D. Ill. No. 1:26-cv-03958 (filed Apr. 9, 2026, Judge John F. Kness) and the instant E.D. Cal. No. 2:26-cv-02413 (filed July 9, 2026, Judge Daniel J. Calabretta), where Prime moved to sever and stay (Dkt. 15; an earlier Dkt. 10 stay motion was withdrawn) and the court deferred the joint status report until that motion was decided. On Aug. 27, 2026, the E.D. Cal. action was transferred by JPML conditional transfer order (CTO-1) into MDL No. 3190, In re Valtrus Innovations Ltd. Patent Litigation, and docketed in E.D. Tex. (Marshall) as No. 2:26-cv-00762 before Judge James Rodney Gilstrap; under E.D. Tex. LR CV-7(j), the pending stay motions are moot and must be re-urged. The MDL was created Aug. 7, 2026, when the Panel transferred seven actions spanning N.D. Ill., W.D. La., D.N.J. and E.D. Tex. — involving CoreSite, Netrality, NTT Global Data Centers Americas, Prime, Lumen, Cologix, H5 Data Centers, Iron Mountain, EvoDC, STACK Infrastructure, and Vertiv's declaratory-judgment action — with tag-alongs adding more (12 actions on the JPML docket as of Sept. 1, 2026). Venue matters both because Judge Gilstrap's Marshall docket is fast and historically plaintiff-friendly and because he already presided over Valtrus's 2024 campaign against NTT Data, DataBank and TierPoint, meaning '277 claim construction has effectively already been litigated in that courtroom. The case is notable on four fronts: (1) it is an early test of MDL coordination of a pure PAE campaign aimed at the AI/data-center build-out, with the panel's stated goal of avoiding inconsistent constructions and duplicative third-party discovery into dozens of operators' cooling systems; (2) the end-user targeting strategy has dragged suppliers into the fight (Vertiv's E.D. Tex. DJ action and customer-indemnity disputes, with operators moving to sever and stay Vertiv-based claims); (3) the expired-patent, damages-only posture shifts value to the broader licensing campaign rather than the individual suits; and (4) PTAB activity exists, including a Vertiv IPR petition against the '277 patent asserting Nakanishi, and Unified Patents has publicly described invalidity/ex parte reexamination work product on Valtrus assets — though I could not confirm the specific IPR number for the '277 patent from the sources retrieved.

Sourcing notes / open items. Grounded in: JPML CTO-1 filed in E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00762 (govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-txed-2_26-cv-00762); JPML MDL No. 3190 docket (dockets.justia.com/docket/multi-district/jpml/MDL No. 3190); JPML July 30, 2026 hearing list (mdlcases.com); E.D. Cal. transfer docket via UniCourt; N.D. Ill. 1:26-cv-03958 docket; D. Mass. 1:26-cv-13811 docket (corporate disclosure); USPTO PTACTS documents for the Vertiv/Valtrus '277 claim charts, IPR petition and standing briefing; Patent Lawyer Magazine (Aug. 21, 2026); Legal Newsline (June 7, 2026); Unified Patents litigation portal and insights page. Not verified: the precise relationship between the N.D. Ill. and E.D. Cal. Prime complaints (refiling vs. different campuses/patents); the full patent set in the Prime matter; Prime Data Centers' corporate details; the assigned IPR number(s) for the '277 patent; and the identity/outcome of the N.D. Cal. Google standing ruling.

I'll research this case aggressively across docket sources, PTAB records, and legal press.

Good — I'm finding substantial material. Let me dig into the specific dockets, the patent, and PTAB activity.

I'll research this case thoroughly. Let me start with several parallel searches.

Let me dig into the specific docket and counsel appearances.

Let me get the specific docket entries and attorney appearances for the Prime Data Centers action.

I hit my research-step limit before I could pull a full PACER docket sheet for the transferred case, so I'll flag clearly what is docket-confirmed versus what I could only source to related Valtrus/KPI matters.

Bottom line

In the operative docket for this case — E.D. Cal. No. 2:26-cv-02413, closed on the transferor side and now pending in E.D. Tex. as an MDL 3190 tag-along (E.D. Tex. No. 2:26-cv-00762, before Judge Rodney Gilstrap) — the only plaintiff-side attorney I can confirm of record is Matthew G. Berkowitz of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP. No separate E.D. Cal. local counsel, no in-house counsel, and no other plaintiff attorney appearances appear in the entries I was able to retrieve. Additional Reichman Jorgensen attorneys did appear for the same two plaintiffs in the sibling N.D. Ill. Prime Data Centers case that was folded into MDL 3190, and those names are listed below as likely (but unconfirmed for this docket) members of the trial team.

Counsel of record — Plaintiff (confirmed)

Matthew G. Berkowitz — lead counsel / counsel of record

• Firm / office: Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP, 100 Marine Parkway, Suite 300, Redwood Shores, CA 94065.
• Docket support: He is the attorney whose appearance was added at filing ("Attorney Berkowitz, Matthew G. added," Dkt. 1, complaint filed 7/9/2026); the E.D. Cal. summons was issued with him as the designated service contact for Prime Data Centers; and he personally signed the plaintiffs' filings in this case — the corporate disclosure statement (Dkt. 2), the certificate of proof of service (Dkt. 14), and Plaintiffs' unopposed motion for a 14-day extension to respond to Prime's motion to sever and stay (Dkt. 17, filed 8/6/2026). He also filed the MDL 3190 notice of appearance for both plaintiffs on the JPML docket (see Valtrus Innovations Limited, et al. v. STACK Infrastructure, Inc., MDL No. 3190, Filing 5, filed by M. Berkowitz for Key Patent Innovations Limited and Valtrus Innovations Limited).
• Experience note: Berkowitz is the lead Valtrus/KPI enforcement lawyer across the data-center campaign — he is the signatory on the pre-suit infringement notice letters that Valtrus sent to data-center operators (admitted in Valtrus's answer in Vertiv Corp. v. Valtrus Innovations, E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00361: "Admitted that Mr. Berkowitz sent letters on behalf of Valtrus alleging infringement of certain Valtrus patents") and has been lead counsel in the related E.D. Tex. suits against NTT Data Services, CyrusOne, Digital Realty, Equinix, TierPoint and DataBank.

Same plaintiffs, related Prime Data Centers docket (N.D. Ill. — not this case)

Before the E.D. Cal. suit was filed, Valtrus and KPI sued the same defendant in N.D. Ill. No. 1:26-cv-03958 (filed 4/9/2026, Judge John F. Kness), which was also swept into MDL 3190. Four plaintiff attorney appearances were entered there on 4/9/2026:

I list these because the same litigation team normally follows the case into the MDL, but I could not confirm that Colsher, Houghton, or McCarthy have entered an appearance in the E.D. Cal./E.D. Tex. Prime Data Centers action. Treat them as probable co-counsel in MDL 3190, not as confirmed counsel of record in this docket.

Other attorneys who appear for Valtrus/KPI in the campaign (context only)

• Eric H. Findlay, Findlay Craft, P.C., 7270 Crosswater Avenue, Suite B, Tyler, TX — E.D. Tex. local counsel used across the Valtrus/KPI data-center suits (e.g., the DataBank complaint signature block, where Berkowitz is listed as "LEAD ATTORNEY" and Findlay signs as local counsel). Notably, in the sibling Valtrus v. Compass Datacenters case the plaintiffs filed a "MOTION to Proceed Without Local Counsel" (E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00800), so it is not a given that Findlay is in this MDL tag-along.
• Aaron Morris and Ariane S. Mann (Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg, Redwood Shores and Washington, D.C. offices) — listed in the signature block of the Valtrus/KPI complaint in a related data-center case; no appearance found in this docket.
• Scott Lamar Cole and Rikesh Patel — notices of appearance for Valtrus/KPI in Valtrus v. SAP America, E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00021 (Dkts. 121 and 106 respectively); campaign counsel, not confirmed here.
• Claire Henry — E.D. Tex. filer of record on numerous Valtrus/KPI papers in the SAP case; firm not confirmed from my sources.

Caveats you should verify on PACER

1. This is a "second" Prime Data Centers suit. The E.D. Cal. complaint was filed 7/9/2026, three months after the N.D. Ill. complaint (4/9/2026) against the same defendant. The case metadata here lists only U.S. Pat. 6,718,277 (the HPE "cooling system" family), whereas press coverage of the Prime case describes two expired cooling patents asserted for past damages. Confirm from the Dkt. 1 complaint which claims/patents are actually asserted, since that affects whether the N.D. Ill. team is duplicative.
2. Local counsel in E.D. Cal. I found no local-counsel appearance; E.D. Cal. permits pro hac vice admission, and Berkowitz is California-based (Redwood Shores), which would explain the absence. If local counsel was added, it would appear in an attorney-appearance entry I could not retrieve.
3. Post-transfer appearances. The case was certified into E.D. Tex. on 8/27/2026 (E.D. Cal. Dkt. 19–20), and E.D. Tex. LR CV-7(j) required all pending motions to be re-urged in the transferee court. Plaintiff-side appearances in E.D. Tex. No. 2:26-cv-00762 may have been filed after the sources I could retrieve were indexed — check the E.D. Tex. docket's attorney list directly.
4. No sealed attorney information. The filings in this docket that I saw are public; the motion papers are not the kind of document that would hide counsel identity, so the gaps above are retrieval gaps, not sealing gaps.

If you can pull the E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00762 docket sheet (the "attorneys" tab plus any Dkt. 1–10 appearances), that will resolve items 1 and 3 definitively.

I'll research the docket and counsel for the defendant in this case.

Let me dig into the specific docket entries and the attorneys named.

Good progress. Now let me pin down the specific defendant-counsel appearances and firms.

Bottom line

The only attorney whose name appears on the defendant's filings in this case (E.D. Cal. No. 2:26-cv-02413, now E.D. Tex. No. 2:26-cv-00762, MDL No. 3190) is Brandon Hugh Stroy, a patent litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Nixon Peabody LLP. He appears to be the sole attorney of record for Prime Data Centers, LLC in this action as of the transfer. A second attorney — Matthew J. Levinstein of Greenberg Traurig (Chicago) — is counsel of record for the same defendant in the related N.D. Ill. Prime Data Centers case that was consolidated into the same MDL. No local counsel or in-house counsel has surfaced in any public filing.

---

Counsel of record — Prime Data Centers, LLC

Note on how Stroy's firm is sourced. The E.D. Cal. docket entries and the UniCourt case page name "Brandon Hugh Stroy" but the snippets I retrieved don't print a firm. Firm attribution comes from corroborating records: the State Bar of California licensee record for Brandon Hugh Stroy #289090 lists an active license at Nixon Peabody LLP, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco; a July 2024 Nixon Peabody press release announced his arrival as a partner in the San Francisco office (from Maynard Cooper & Gale); and he appeared as "Brandon Stroy (SBN 289090), bstroy@nixonpeabody.com, Nixon Peabody LLP" in N.D. Cal. filings. I did not find a 2026-dated firm confirmation specific to this docket, so verify on PACER before relying on the firm name in a filing.

---

What is and isn't confirmed

• Confirmed on the docket: Prime moved twice to stay/sever in the transferor court — a first motion (#10) withdrawn on 7/29/2026 (#13), and a renewed motion to sever and stay (#15, filed 8/4/2026), with briefing deferred (#16, #18) and the case then transferred to E.D. Tex. on 8/27/2026 (#19, #20). Stroy's signature is on these.
• Not confirmed: whether additional attorneys (a second firm, a Texas local-counsel appearance under E.D. Tex. L.R. CV-1, or an E.D. Tex. re-appearance after the 8/27/2026 transfer) have since entered. I could not retrieve the post-transfer docket for 2:26-cv-00762 (E.D. Tex.), and under E.D. Tex. L.R. CV-7(j) the transferor-court motions were mooted and must be re-urged — typically accompanied by fresh pro hac vice / lead-counsel designations. If new counsel has appeared since late August 2026, it would not show in any of the aggregator snapshots I could reach (the Justia mirror of the N.D. Ill. docket was last refreshed 6/4/2026).
• No in-house counsel identified. No corporate officer or in-house attorney for Prime Data Centers appears in the public docket.
• No sealed-appearance issue found: the defense filings in question are public docket entries; the absence of additional names reflects the record as retrieved, not sealing.

Unverified lead worth checking

In the JPML/MDL 3190 proceedings, a combined filing on behalf of several data-center defendants (including Prime Data Centers, LLC, alongside Iron Mountain, Lumen, EvoDC, H5 Data Centers, and Netrality) is captioned as filed by "Timothy P." (surname truncated in the snippet). That may be MDL-coordination counsel separate from trial counsel — I could not identify the person or firm, so I am flagging it rather than naming it.

Practical research steps to close the gaps

1. Pull the PACER docket for 2:26-cv-00762 (E.D. Tex.) and check for appearances after 8/27/2026, plus any lead-counsel designation.
2. Pull the full docket for 2:26-cv-02413 (E.D. Cal.) to confirm the complete appearance list (including any attorney who appeared alongside Stroy).
3. Check the MDL 3190 docket sheet for a defendant-side leadership/steering structure and for any consolidated appointment covering Prime.
4. Cross-check the JPML "Timothy P." filing in MDL 3190 to see whether Prime has separate MDL counsel.
5. Because Vertiv Corporation is litigating indemnity obligations to data-center customers (Valtrus v. NTT Data Services, No. 2:24-cv-00361, E.D. Tex.), confirm whether Prime's defense is being directed or funded by an equipment supplier — that often determines who actually appears.